Malheur 6

Belgium’s May heatwave continues into this three-day weekend, and after a good few hours in the garden, I’m settling back with a Malheur 6 on the now steaming terrace.

I’ve had Malheur 10 before, and I wasn’t raving about it. Of course, that was during a low-point in the 40b40, in which I was sampling one strong blond ale after another, and growing quite sick of them.

Malhuer 6, however, is something different. Very smooth. At 6%, it’s not as strong as the 10, and I think the easiest way to describe it is that it’s like Leffe Blond without the sticky sweetness. That means, it’s very good, because it’s that syrupiness that ruins the other beer.

Malheur 6 has mild carbonation, notes of stewed sour apples, and a lovely hoppy finish. Strongly recommended drinking for a steamy afternoon when everything in your garden is thriving so much that you can almost see the shoots growing.

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La Divine

Another beer from the Silly Brewery, makers of the unloved Double Enghien Brune. This one is called “La Divine”. No expectations raised there really, eh?

It has a lovely dark amber colour. And the taste is excellent. Smooth and low fizz body. Malty without being sticky. Perfectly balanced bitter and sweet, with neither lasting too long in the aftertaste. It’s strong, but the alcohol doesn’t overpower the other tastes. Hints of clover.

Overall, I’m quite impressed. I’m not sure what’s so “Divine” about it, but then, I’m an atheist so even if they claim the 9.5% alcohol content brings the drinker closer to god, I wouldn’t buy it. This beer, however, I would buy again.

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La Trappe Blond (and Alt)

After a long weekend in Münster and Düsseldorf, Germany, where Hefeweizen and Altbier were enjoyed in some significant quantities, we arrived home with a couple hours left on the sun-trap terrace. Just enough time to open a bottle of La Trappe Blond.

In previous tastings, I wasn’t overly impressed with La Trappe Dubbel or La Trappe Quadrupel, and in general, I have to say this brand, La Trappe from the Koningshoeven Brewery, is my least favourite Trappist label. And I’m not just saying that because it’s from the Netherlands while this is a blog about Belgian beer.

The Blond again failed to meet expectations. It pours a lovely clear amber, but I could hardly find anything in the taste to distinguish it. Not that it’s bad by any means -- it does have a creamy sweetness that’s identifiable if not exactly noteworthy. But really, if that’s the best I can say about it, it must be pretty disappointing. 6.5% alcohol, in case you were wondering.

I was much more impressed this weekend by the Altbier, or “Alt”, in Düsseldorf, in particular the brand Schumacher. It’s a very drinkable pale ale, and I highly recommend it to anyone who’s passing through North Rhine-Westphalia (Nordrhein-Westfalen), which seems to be about the only place you can find it. See, so I do like some non-Belgian beers...

Special thanks to Marcus for introducing me to Alt on Saturday!

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Zinne Bir

Downpour. Bright sun. Downpour. Bright sun. That’s Brussels these days.

We had a couple hours catching up on gardening this morning while it was dry. Then, a full two hours of Monopoly inside while our new plants got soaked. Now, I’m trying to squeeze in a quick beer-tasting on the terrace in the few minutes it remains a sun-trap before that dark cloud comes overhead.

I picked up this bottle of Zinne Bir ages ago, and I have to admit I bought it for its label. It’s brilliant, and actually, it matches this day perfectly. And it's just one of several great beer labels from La Brasserie de la Senne (De Zenne Brouwerij).

This one sat on my shelf looking pretty for months -- no harm, as that’s just given it a bit more time to ferment in the bottle -- and now comes the moment when we will tell whether what’s in the bottle is as good as what’s on it.

It’s a blond beer with an amber colour and thick head. The taste is strongly bitter with a deep current of candied orange peel running through it. The alcohol level of 6% blends in nicely. Very nice overall balance.

OK, that’s all for now. It’s started raining again, and I’ve got to get in before the laptop gets too wet.

No, wait. Now the sun is coming out again. Maybe I've got time for another tasting.

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Affligem Dubbel

Racing to get a review in here between packing and preparing for a weekend of work away from home...

Affligem Dubbel pours a bottle-brown colour and has a fairly thin body. It’s malty and sweet but fizzy. More fumy than you’d expect for 6.8%. Not bad, but not hugely above average either. It’s a bit of a disappointment, really, because I quite liked Affligem Tripel.

Wait. Now I am sipping the beer a few minutes after writing the above, and I’m getting more out of this glass. The fizz is greatly reduced, and I sense a biscuit taste and a surprising hint of lavender.

Maybe I was just in a rush before and not concentrating. I’m off to Oslo for work tomorrow, and I’ve got one hundred things to do before my morning flight.

But OK, time to slow down and enjoy the rest of this abbey beer.

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Hoegaarden

Once again, I come to a Belgian beer that I should have reviewed ages ago: Hoegaarden. Apart from Stella Artois, there can hardly be a better known brew from this country.

For the record, I have written up other beers from this brand family including, Hoegaarden De Verboden Vrucht, Hoegaarden Grand Cru and Hoegaarden Speciale, but it is the regular old wheat beer, Hoegaarden, that everyone knows best. So, after waiting 90 beers to get to this point, let’s get on with it...

No, wait. First a confession: I love Hoegaarden. I think it’s the first Belgian beer I ever tasted. The cloudy straw colour is so inviting, and I’ve always found it enormously easy to drink, with its citrus-and-spice aspect just brilliant on a warm summer’s day. Always give the bottle dregs a swirl before you finish pouring it into your glass to get all the flavours... yum.

That said, I’m not sure it would be on my list of top ten Belgian beers. I wonder if what I love about Hoegaarden is not this brand per se but the whole idea of the Belgian-style wheat beer or witbier -- which is not to be confused with the numerous varieties of German Weißbier, which are also excellent, though generally significantly heartier (or at least the Hefeweizen that first comes to my mind).

Anyway, the point is I really haven’t tried enough other Belgian wheat beers to tell if Hoegaarden is a great example of this genre or just standard fare. Luckily, I have a full summer ahead of me in which to do a bit of research and side-by-side comparisons.

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Cuvée de Francorchamps

I suspect this is going to be a dodgy beer, but since it has a little race car on the label and I just spent all day driving, it seems appropriate for an evening on the sun-trap terrace. OK, I was in a Volkswagen Passat in the Netherlands not in a formula one, but as I was taking the in-laws around to look at tulips, porcelain and cheese, I thought I might find these items closer to a Dutch motorway than any speedway. But we’re back now, and, well, enough about me...

Cuvée de Francorchamps is a beer we picked up at a shop in Malmedy on our Ardennes winter retreat, but although it boasts an address in that town, I now know enough to realise that this means very little. When is comes to location of production, there are a lot of cheating Belgian beers.

It’s a tripel with 8% alcohol and a coppery colour. Strong head. The taste is a bit better than I expected, actually. Slightly creamy, good bitterness of grapefruit pith. Not as sharp and yummy as, say, Chimay tripel, but not too bad considering -- did I mention this already -- it has a picture of a formula one racing car on its label.

There’s something about having a picture of a car on a bottle of alcohol, no? I know this brand is trying to play on the F1 race at Spa, Belgium, but really, should we be encouraging strong ale drinking and fast driving? And everyone knows F1 drivers prefer champagne -- at least when it comes to spraying booze over people if not actually consuming it. Do they ever even drink it?

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Double Enghien Brune

Time to get Silly. Time to drink a beer from the Silly Brewery in Silly, Belgium, that is.

It’s supposed to be a dark beer, but it’s not particularly dark. Hoegaarden Grand Cru, a blond ale, is darker. That’s a bit silly.

Sadly, when it comes to taste, it only gets sillier. This beer doesn’t have much to recommend it. Dishwashing liquid, wet cardboard, and an out-of-balance alcoholic fume-a-thon dominating the whole thing. (though it’s only 8%) Then, there’s a stale hop aftertaste that lingers about fifteen minutes longer than necessary.

“You drinking Douwe Egberts beer or something?” said Fiona, referring to the label and its similarity to the brand of coffee. Silly wife.

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Lindemans Kriek Lambic -- live from Connecticut

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It’s been a while since this blog has had a video-linked beer tasting from Connecticut. Not since the sillier days of January, with Gulden Draak and Piraat have I sat down for a beer with my brother.

We chose Lindemans Kriek Lambic mostly because he can find it easily enough near his hometown, though I have to admit that after my experiences at the Cantillon Brewery here in Brussels (not once but twice), I was more than a little worried this would be one of those lambics I was warned about: the super-sweet new-style that has little if anything to do with the traditional sour variety.

But before we got to the tasting, which I enjoyed on the terrace sun-trap, we had a matter of opening the bottles, which was confused by the methodology. While I only had to pop a crown cap, Brian had both cap and cork. We hadn’t been surprised that the same product in the US and Belgium had a different label, but this cork-non-cork business flummoxed us greatly. Why the different seals?

The taste now... it’s about 95% what I’d expected. Sickly sweet like cherry cough drops or cough mixture. Fiona specifies, saying, “Cherry Tunes”, the well-know throat sweets.

Laura says, “it’s not like a beer”.

Indeed, it’s more like a soda... and heavy on the syrup.

Fiona comes over and tells me, “you stink of cherry, and it’s really nasty”.

Looking for a nice word to say, Brian points out that it’s got, “a nice bit of sediment on the bottom”.

Of course, for traditional brewers like Cantillon -- and those like myself who agree with their ethos -- this sticky sweet stuff will just never cut it. I know public tastes have been growing sweeter in recent decades, and producers will naturally chase the fickle market, but Lindemans Kriek Lambic is to proper beer what Twinkies are to our local patisserie.

About the only thing that saves this drink from getting poured down the sink is a desperately needed bitterness just at the very end of the aftertaste. Sadly, it’s only the faintest hint, and Lindemans is probably working on a way to eliminate that, too.

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Hoegaarden Grand Cru

I still haven’t written up plain old garden-variety Hoegaarden yet, because I am waiting for a super hot summer day. But while I’ve got a warmish evening here again in the terrace sun-trap, I may as well review the beer currently to hand, Hoegaarden Grand Cru.

This is a lovely beer. It pours cloudy orange with a thick, almost unreal Duvel-like head. The taste is an excellent mixture of sweet and bitter, with some spicy aromatics -- perhaps allspice or nutmeg? It has clear citrus notes, as well. The 8.5% alcohol is barely noticeable. And it’s thicker and heartier than other strong blond ales.

In mega-brewer InBev’s stable of beers, Hoegaarden Grand Cru is closer to Hoegaarden De Verboden Vrucht than Hoegaarden Speciale or the light and white Hoegaarden regular. I’m not really sure what all these beers have to do with each other apart from the marketing ploy of brand extension.

Still, let’s not be churlish. It’s a very good beer. Perfect for a -- now cooling -- evening on the terrace.

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